Stuart Aken's Blog, page 245

The Gordonston Ladies Dog Walking Club, by Duncan Whitehead, Reviewed.

An unusual title for an unusual book. I was unsure what to expect from this book, which as I write this, has been listed as a finalist in the 2013 Readers’ Favourite annual International Award Contest in the humour category. There’s certainly an element of humour in the story and its presentation, and I did laugh out loud quite a lot whilst reading. So, I wish it well in that contest. Comedy isn’t noted for its ability to travel, so my enjoyment of the humour, as a Brit, suggests this one has managed that trick rather well.
If I say that the book is a ‘light’ crime novel, you might get the idea that it is a different type of book than the one I actually read. There is a deal of the minutiae involved in the lives of the many characters, all of whom are well drawn. Lots of detail and some repetition that describes the people and their lives; many of which are about to be changed. Superficial appearances are shown to be misleading. Love and lust are interchangeable for some of the protagonists here and the element of cheating is not uncommon, giving the whole community a slightly seedy feel.
I found myself rooting for some characters, only to discover in later pages that they weren’t the innocents I had first taken them for. The pettiness, selfishness, ambition and deceit of the characters come across well, so that their ultimate fates, initially apparently unjust, become almost desirable.
There are several surprises along the way in this well-plotted novel. I found myself quite convinced I had the identities of villains and victims sorted early on, only to discover that clever wording had fooled me. I enjoyed the read, even if it was a little longer than might have been absolutely essential. I suspect that the inclusion of so much detail was a way of conveying the very ordinariness of the lives that were introduced, only to then prove that these lives were, in fact, not at all ordinary. A good read that I recommend.

Where Have All the Wild Things Gone?

Here in UK we’re celebrating the arrival of summer at long last. Several days of hot sunshine and dry weather, for most of the country. It’s a welcome change from a cold winter and a cool, wet spring.

Yesterday, my wife and I went for a walk along a route we haven’t travelled since last autumn. It’s a 4 mile stroll through fields around the small market town where we live. The lanes and paths are rural, winding through farmland for the most part but beginning in the small village of Little Driffield and ending back in Great Driffield. We generally stop to watch and listen to the many song birds and we usually, especially in summer, have to spend a little energy in wafting away the myriad flying insects that rise from the grass, crops and hedgerows.
This time, the walk was different. It was hot and dry under a cloudless sky. The birds were quiet. There was no background hum and buzz of busy insects. Even the crickets were silent. Disturbingly, we heard only 2 songbirds along the entire walk and saw only a small flock of Swallows on the wing. The hedgerows were devoid of ladybirds, the grass hid no crawling or flying insects, the cow parsley was pristine, it’s creamy flowers entirely undisturbed by the usual crop of cardinal beetles. We saw 3 small butterflies in a place we would normally lose count. The clover, usual haunt of honeybees, was silent. No flies, small or large, buzzed us. In short, the landscape, lush with green vegetation, poppies, wheat, barley, oil seed rape and wildflowers, seemed bereft of animal life.
I’m no biologist, not even a naturalist, but I know enough to understand that a lack of insect life must eventually have a detrimental effect on life further up the food chain. Without beetles and grubs, the voles, shrews and other small mammals will fail to breed. The birds will not mate without the promise of food to feed their fledglings. Not least amongst the concerns at this absence of insects is the simple fact that most of the food crops grown for human consumption are fertilised by insects. No insects: no food.
So, where have they gone? What has happened to cause this unnatural silence and absence of wildlife? The simple answer is, probably, ‘climate change’. The pattern of weather this year has been chaotic. We’ve had records in almost every month. Coldest, wettest, cloudiest, driest and, I suspect, come the end of July, hottest. Such contrasts within so short a time are all but unheard of. Of course, there have always been variations in the weather patterns; the climate of this small group of islands is noted for its changeable nature. And we all understand that, in the long history of the world, the climate has alternated between tropical and frozen. But these changes have taken place over millennia, sometimes over millions of years. What has changed is the time scale.
Like most of my generation, I recall long, hot summers following mild, wet springs and fading into cool, damp autumns to end in cold, wet winters. Real seasons. I accept the evidence may be anecdotal, but somehow, the world ‘feels’ like a different place now. Rapid change isn’t happening only here in Britain. The world over, countries are suffering huge variations in their weather patterns. Drought, storm, flooding, snowfall, natural wildfires, hurricane and typhoon are all happening with greater frequency and intensity all over the planet.
In the 1980s, I joined Greenpeace, when that organisation arrived on these shores. At that time, in spite of other concerns, the scientists involved with the ecological movement were already predicting that what was then called ‘global warming’ would cause great variations in weather for the globe. They predicted that the dry places would become drier, the wet, wetter, etc. ‘Global warming’ in spite of the accuracy of the term (since global temperatures are on the rise) has been replaced with the less dramatic ‘climate change’ label. But, whatever we want to call the process of change, it cannot be denied that change is happening.
I suspect that my local walk has highlighted a result of climate change. I don’t know if this is the case, but I can think of no other likely cause. There are those, of course, mostly with vested interests or employing the ostrich philosophy, who decry all talk of climate change. This in the face of the fact that most governments and the vast majority of climate scientists are now convinced the planet is undergoing serious changes to the climate. The most urgent question we must answer is, ‘What is causing this disruption?’ If, as most of us who care think, it is human activity that’s responsible for the dramatic rate of change, then we need to take action to curb our destructive tendencies. It will mean changing the way we live, what we eat, how we dress, where we buy our products, how we utilise energy and resources.
We’re rapidly reaching a point where a failure to act will cause the changes to form their own momentum. There’s a strong possibility that we’ll reach a tipping point that, once exceeded, will be impossible to reverse. Under those circumstances we have no real knowledge of the consequences. We only know that they’re likely to be distinctly uncomfortable, possibly dangerous and most likely will lead to war as resources fail within individual countries. All such change is more likely to happen after I have gone, of course. It’s for my daughter and her children, as yet unborn, that I fear for the future. If you have children, perhaps you’ll give some thought to this issue and, if you don’t already do your share to avoid the coming catastrophe, maybe you’ll take the trouble to become informed and take action now, before it really is too late?

An Epic Fantasy Trilogy: Your Suggestions Please.

I’ve spent a good part of the past few years in researching, devising and finally writing an adult epic fantasy trilogy. So far, for A Seared Sky, books 1 and 2 are written and edited and, now I’ve started writing book 3, I’m looking at publication of the first book. I delayed publication as I’m aware that the initial books of trilogies have been released to readers in the past only for them to learn that the story is incomplete and for those following books never to actually appear. By waiting to publish book 1 until I’ve actually started writing book 3, I hope to provide potential readers with the confidence that this is a story that will be completed.
My request here, however, is for the views of readers on the introductions to books 2 and 3. There is more than one convention at work and I’d love to know what readers actually prefer. Do you want a synopsis of the previous book (book 1 when reading book 2; book 2 when reading book 3)? This sometimes takes the form of a descriptive opening chapter, sometimes a prologue. Or do you prefer that the books each start as if the previous books have been read and remembered, with a few references to past events to jog the memory? Or, indeed, do you prefer an entirely different approach? If so, what?
Those are my questions and I really would appreciate your input. Please be as detailed or brief as you wish. It’s your opinions I seek here.

Another 5 Star Review for Breaking Faith

5.0 out of 5 stars LOVE'S PHILOSOPHY .. EXPERTLY CAPTURED, 9 July 2013By r j askew (London + St.Albans, UK) - See all my reviewsAmazon Verified Purchase(What is this?)This review is from: Breaking Faith (Kindle Edition)For Philip Larkin, one of our chippiest English poets, sex began in 1963, too late for him. In his 'Annus Mirabilis' poem, he says sex began between the failed attempt to ban D.H.Lawrence's 'Lady Chatterly's Lover' because of its explicit references to sex and the Beatles' first LP. In 1971, our traditionally prudish attitudes to sex were turned into comedy in 'No Sex Please, We're British.'

But the sexual jack-in-a-box was out of his box and never going back. Maybe we were more innocent back then. Maybe the ideals of free love still meant something.

Set in the midst of all this, BREAKING FAITH is a moving and often shocking story of lust and love set in Yorkshire, England, in the scorching summer of 1976.

I enjoyed the read very much, in part because it reminded me of my own youth and of the remarkable summer. I also enjoyed the setting in the Yorkshire Dales, with remote farmhouses, tarns up the hillside, and with the melancholic warble of curlews to make us feel at home.

But BREAKING FAITH is not a gentle period piece. There is great brutality in the story, incest, and extreme hypocrisy.

There is also some excellent story telling. I was engaged from the start and the story bossed my attention to the very end. There is action, mostly in the form of some very finely described sex, with some very sexy players.

So far so good.

I enjoyed the physical vigour of the story, which at times had a Hardyesque feel to it in terms of symbolic and significant events. At other times it reminded me of the melodrama in Zola.

The most fascinating aspect of the story though was the evolution of the central character, Faith. I thought she was a brilliant study of an innocent girl's extraordinary journey into womanhood from a very bad start in life. I found her character as refreshing as the moorland tarn she loved to swim in. Yet Faith is forced to swim in the altogehter more challenging waters of a sexually driven whirlpool.

The sexual god of this whirlpool is Leigh, a successful local photographer with an eye for a glamour shot. He is also as randy and rampant as a prize-winning ram.

On the face of it, he and Faith are entirely unsuited. Yet they both work on each other in extraordinary ways. I found Faith's enlightenment in things physical absolutely absorbing because of her near crippling innocence and honesty. So, too, I found Leigh to be as compassionate as he was passionate. His heart, as well as other parts of his anatomy, was in the right place. And he was ready to be a physical champion in the cause of justice in an unjust and corrupt world. While he values women for their bodies, he also goes to war on their behalf for those who abuse them. He is an old style cavalier at the forefront of the sexual revolution.

On the dark side, there are a couple of very nasty characters in BREAKING FAITH. You would not want to have anything to do with either of them and they have no redeeming qualities. They are violent and sexually depraved.

There is a philsophical slant to drawn from the way sex can bring out the very best in us and the very worst, depending on our natures.

But there is more to BREAKING FAITH than lust and love. There is also a complex web of family relationships in play. In the last third or so of the book these become increasinly important as Faith learns more about who she is and discovers her lost father. This strand of the story is exceptionally moving, beautiful in fact. I was expecially absorbed by Faith's moral courage. While the author shows us brutality, sexuality, hypocrisy and violence, he also shows us the very best of moral fortitude, natural intelligence and love. A belt and a fist are powerful because they can hurt. But love is more powerful because it heals. And this is what happens. Love triumphs over lust. But much has to be overcome in the process and it is not a straightforward victory. You will have to read BREAKING FAITH yourself to see how the author pulls off all these strokes.

I assure yoy there are some exquisitely gentle touches in BREAKING FAITH, especially in the latter part of the story.

And there is a profound message in this very sexy story set in the sweaty-summer of sex: love beats everything.

I wonder what Philip Larkin would have made of BREAKING FAITH. And I wonder how many Faith's there are in our midst even now. You hear about them every now and again. Meanwhile, the sexual revolution has not stood still. Now we have internet porn, which poses a whole new set of questions about how men view women. Perhaps nothing has really changed in that getting the right balance in the lust and love stakes is never easy. I suspect the author was making some point about how men treat women in the title of his story. In the end, the hero of the story is broken by Faith because her love breaks his lust. But then Faith is an extraordiary woman.

I recommend BREAKING FAITH to you. It is not an easy read at times, but the darkness of the few grim scenes is always outdone by the beauty of the loving scenes.

Ron Askew

Watching Swifts, by R.J. Askew, Reviewed.

Literature is a diverse field, blossoming with the flowers of wildly divergent creators. In Watching Swifts, by R.J. Askew, the reader is given a rare bloom; something both tough and beautiful.

This was my first read on my iPad and it proved a worthy initiation for that device. I found myself drawn into the narrative by the contrasts. This is the story of one man’s life as it collides with a stranger in a public place and finds an unexpected outlet. Tom is anything but an ordinary guy; his confidant is a burnt out war photographer publishing a book of her pictures from war zones. Their initial contact flows from their visual appreciation of the world: she takes photographs; he draws. And he draws her as she sits at a table in Kew as he serves tourists with ice cream.
We learn, in broken passages, the story of his extraordinary life and we’re presented with ideas of what it is to live outside normal society. There is much stream of consciousness, delivered in a gritty, realistic style but interspersed with the language of a modern day Shakespeare. The short pieces of poetry, spoken by the man for the woman’s benefit, hint at a growing love; a love both deep and likely to be unfulfilled.
The swifts of the title are those magical birds that live on the wing, landing only to nest. And they are Tom’s obsession. But the narrative uses them as metaphors, as carriers of deep emotion, as symbols of the soaring wants of ordinary people. They are also, tragically, potential victims of those without the soul to see their life song.
Emma introduces and ends the story; a romance, a tragedy, a biography, a parable. But it is Tom whose voice we hear most of the time. An enigma at the start, he develops into someone complex, honest, vital, real. And Parker, well, we all have to bear a Parker in our lives, unfortunately. Though this one has more depth than most.
This is literary fiction at its best. Accessible yet full of analogy, metaphor, symbol and subsurface meaning. Unusually for a contemporary example of the genre, there is an actual story and the people are as real as your brother, mother, girlfriend, dad.
There is death here; life, love, passion, hatred, violence, Nature at her best and worst, humour, compassion and perhaps a touch of madness. This is a story that lives on the page and delves under the reader’s skin to tell its tale. I cannot think of a comparable work, but if you enjoy fiction that lives, characters who are real and have real problems to solve and real lives to lead, and superb, flowing, apposite language, then you’ll love this book. I thoroughly enjoyed the read and recommend it without reservation.

Not Enough for June?

Some will recall the 1960s film, “Hot Enough For June’, from which I derived my title this month. There’s no connection at all with the comedy spy movie; I just like the modified title, as it appears apposite.

So, what has this last month seen in the study of writer Stuart Aken? Well, not enough writing, that’s for sure. But there has been a great deal of editing, and that can only be to the good. My adult epic fantasy trilogy has been hanging around for long enough. I’ve written and edited the first two books and have now started writing book three. Long ago, I decided that I’d look at publishing book one as soon as I started writing book three. So, I’ve prepared it ready for a publisher and am now in the process of seeking some company that will be prepared to risk some investment in my fantasy. The book is 216,000 words (for comparison, the first book of the Lord of the Rings trilogy is about 198,000 words) and will need to incorporate 3 or 4 maps. Clearly, this is hardly the sort of package most publishers will welcome. They tend to look for books that will be easy and cheap to produce. I need a brave publisher. If one doesn’t materialise, I shall have to self-publish, of course. I think an ebook initially, to see how it goes, and then the paper version. Still that’s for the future. For the moment, I’m looking at submission and the work involved. As you’ll see from the chart, I’ve spent a good part of the month in editing; most of that was on book one, which has 53 chapters. I’m still involved in the final edit of book 2; really no more than a re-read to increase my familiarity with the 83 named characters and multitude of places in my invented world.
What else have I done? Well, I’ve read a couple of books and written reviews. Reviewed some software, written a few blog posts, including a guest post on character development; here’s the link for that, should you be interested: http://brianhayden.net/guest-post-by-stuart-aken-character-development-is-good-for-you/I’ve also written a short story and entered another for a contest. Nowhere near my target of one new story and one contest submission per week, but at least better than nothing. I did more research for the contest page on here, only to discover that I can no longer use Google Docs to provide that updated version. A lot of fruitless experimentation later, I discovered there is now no way I can continue to provide this service for my readers. I will, however, continue to find and pass on links to the websites I come across where writing contests are listed. Hopefully, some time in the unspecified future, I’ll be able to come back to this and pass on the information as previously.
Oh, and the touch-typing seems to have died a death along the way. It’s simply too time-consuming to try to write anything with my current level of ability in that skill, and I’ve discovered that extreme age has rendered my hands less flexible, so I’m not able to sustain the digital gymnastics for long enough to produce anything of a worthwhile length. It was worth the attempt, but I think the time has come to give in gracefully and continue with the reliable and relatively speedy two fingers and thumb approach that has stood me in good stead for the past 46 years.
For the coming months, I’ll now be more and more deeply involved in the creation of the third book of the trilogy. That is bound to take up vast quantities of time and effort, so I may not manage as much other activity. Only time will tell; but the writing must come first, so forgive me if I appear to be ignoring you: I’m not; simply spending my time in the best way I can to get some more fiction out there for you.
In the meantime, as always, I welcome and encourage your thoughts here in the form of comments. Let us all know what you’re doing and what your priorities are for July.
The chart, explained: 'Writing' - initial creation of stories, blog posts, reviews and longer works.'Editing' - polishing of all written work to make it suitable for readers.'Research' - discovery of info for story content, market research, contests and blog posts.'Reading' - books and writing magazines.'Networking' - emails, Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+activity.
'Admin' - story submission, blog posting, marketing, organisation, learning to touch-type, and general admin tasks.Related articles Zemanta Power User - Stuart Aken Writing Contest - Longhand Fiction Out of the Thinking Stage into the Fire Through the Looking Glass with T.A. Miles: Author Interview Reading Woes of a Series-a-holic

In Search of Identity, by Anwer el-Sadat, Reviewed.

I rarely read autobiographies; they tend to be showcases for the subject, with little concern for the truth. However, this one is different. Partly because it’s a mix of personal and political memoir, but mostly because the author was fundamentally honest. That is, he was as honest as any man placed in a position of power and probably more so than most in that situation. For those who are unaware of the man, he was the President of Egypt (for those Americans who believe the world ceases to exist beyond their borders, this is a large country in North Africa, on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea and site of the Suez Canal: sorry to all those other Americans who do know), from 15 October 1970 to 6 October 1981, when he was assassinated during a victory parade.
He was active in the military and in politics during a period of extreme upheaval in his country and took action that impacted on the whole of the Middle East and, possibly, the world.
The book is full of the detail that matters to the politician but it is written with a clear care for his country and a deep love of those he admired and respected. His relationship with Nasser in particular is told with such frankness but such affection that the reader feels present at many of the exchanges.There is very little of his personal life in these pages. His wives each get a brief mention and his children are not even alluded to. This is a book about the public rather than the private individual. But he does detail his emotions and concerns during his period of imprisonment. And his matter of fact style does nothing to conceal his frustrations with fellow officers and politicians engaged in coups or revolution.
As a Brit, I was intrigued to learn of the hatred and sheer disrespect he and his fellow countrymen felt for Great Britain as we reached the latter days of imperial power. I had, of course, always known of the mistake that was the Suez War. And I was fascinated to learn of Sadat’s hero worship of Zahran, one of the victims of the appalling incident at Denshway. I knew of this shameful event that had typified the arrogant and despotic nature of British overseas rule at the time, as I worked on a piece for radio with a fellow author, Dave Wallis. It was never broadcast because the authorities felt it was too political.
The book also gives an insight into the gentler side of Islam, whilst unconsciously validating the opinion that faith schools that brain-wash young students do great damage to the ability of those pupils to make fully informed decisions or to question the reality behind the dogma they are fed.
As with many political memoirs, this is a book peppered with names. Some are world famous individuals carrying their own reputations; Jimmy Carter, Henry Kissinger, Aleksei Kosygin, Yasir Arafat, James Callaghan and Menahem Begin come to mind. But many are, of course, figures only really known within Egypt, with little exposure on the world stage. He brings these people to life, however, and places them into the context of a country struggling first with the ideal of independence and then with establishing the rule of law amongst a population dangerously divided by sectarianism.

It is a fascinating read. I recommend it to those who have an interest in world politics and, especially, to those concerned with past and present events in the Middle East. A good, if sometimes difficult, read.Related articles June 30 showdown in Egypt Mubarak transformed Egypt into a reliable State Mohammed Mursi Egypt: Two of Sadat's Killers Released

Writing? What Constitutes Work for You?

Time and again, we hear wails from writers complaining that writing is such hard work. They moan about how difficult it all is, so that one is forced to wonder why they do it. Coal mining is hard work, labouring is hard work, working a 70 hour shift as a junior doctor in a hospital is hard work. Writing isn’t, or shouldn’t be, hard work.

No one is forced to write: it’s a personal choice, a selection of a lifestyle. Anyone who becomes a writer in the expectation of making easy money is a fool. Writing fiction is not a way to guarantee a worthwhile income. The average English novel makes around £2000.00 for the writer: that’s for an investment of maybe two years work (and, included in that average is the income made by authors such as JK Rowling. Do the math, as they say). Anyone entering the field without awareness of the realities is either naive or stupid. Few freelancers, writing articles, make a very good living, though some make a reasonable amount. Probably the only way to be sure of a constant income from writing is to become a journalist working on a regularly published journal. Everything else is speculation.
For me, writing is not work. It’s a joy, a journey through my imagination to lands and lives I invent. This isn’t work, this is delight. Editing isn’t work; not for me. I love the chase for the perfect word or phrase. I love the discovery of new vocabulary to replace repetitions, I love the search for new ways to say things. Research isn’t work: it’s an adventure, a trip to new experiences and knowledge.
So, what is work for me, when it comes to the world of writing fiction? Selling. Marketing. Building a platform. I’ve worked as a salesman more than once during my varied career and it was never a role that sat easily with me. We look at life through our own eyes, and tend to expect that people are pretty much like us. I’m that guy who never wants to be advised on what to buy, who doesn’t want to be approached by a shop assistant handing out advice. If I want something, I do some research and buy what appears to be best for my needs. I expect others to be similar, so the idea of actively selling seems either a waste of time or a con trick. Surely people know what they want and where they can obtain it? Marketing is similar, in that it’s a means to persuade people to be interested in something they may otherwise not consider.
I hear the screams of protest. I hear the denials. Yes, I know that the world of books is a tough one with competition that’s often far from fair. I understand that, if I want to sell my books, I have to somehow get them to the attention of readers. In so doing, I have to compete and become involved in league tables, press releases, advertising, promotion, engagement with potential readers, and a slough of other activities all designed to take me away from what I think I do best; writing.
So, I have a choice. I can spend most of my time and effort engaged in activity designed to bring my work to the attention of others; something I’ve been doing with minimal success for the past year or more. Or I can write, publish books, and hope that readers will appreciate those works, spread the word and allow me to build a readership that enables my books to be read by more and more people. My choice should depend on what I do best and what I most love. Writing. So, that is what, from now, I will be doing. If I sell few books as a result of taking this approach, so be it: it’ll be no change from the current situation. Except that I’ll be actively enjoying my time writing instead of finding the task of marketing and selling a drudgery I can barely abide.
I’ve spent the last three days in doing the final editing of book one of a fantasy trilogy. Much of that time has been a re-reading of the book, following the editing, so that I have it fresh in my mind. I’ll spend the next few days in doing the same for book two, already written and edited. Then I can start to write book three, which has been slowly bubbling away in the back of my mind during the last few months. This is what I love to do. Write.
This means I won’t always be free to do these spots, which were once regular. I’ll certainly try to produce a post each week, simply because this is a form of writing I enjoy and find relatively easy to do. It’s also a necessary break from the more imaginative creative writing involved in making up a story. But it isn’t work. Not for me. It’s pleasure, enjoyment, fulfilment.
So. When it comes to the world of writing, what constitutes work for you and why do you do it? Let us all know. Just place a comment here and share your thoughts. You might help some other poor beleaguered writer along the way.
 Here are a few quotes on work from well know writers:
Work is the curse of the drinking classes. Oscar Wilde.Work is a necessary evil to be avoided. Mark Twain.Nothing is work unless you’d rather be doing something else. George Halas.Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do. Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do. Mark Twain.Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work. Stephen King.I put my heart and soul into my work, and have lost my mind in the process. Vincent Van Gogh.Never permit a dichotomy to rule your life, a dichotomy in which you hate what you do so you can have pleasure in your spare time. Look for a situation in which your work will give you as much happiness as your spare time. Pablo Picasso.The more I want to get something done, the less I call it work. Richard Bach.If you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work. Khalil Gibran.

I think you’ll spot those with which I agree. More than anything else, I hope you’ll find ways to enjoy this wonderful craft we call writing.Related articles J. K. Rowling's Top 10: Good Tips for Writing a Book Why I Love Writing But Still Hate English Class (Part 2) Mark Twain on Writing a Novel. Best Seller or Mockery? How Sharon Short Became a Writer

ProWritingAid, a Review.

When a member of my writers group suggests a writing tool might be useful, I sit up and take notice. When April Taylor sent the group an email about ProWritingAid, I decided to explore. We’re an odd bunch, but all professional published writers with varied experience and we tend to filter out the dross for each other.
ProWritingAid is a text editing suite. A trial version allows a writer to paste text into the program and obtain an analysis. It’s a useful introduction to the application, but doesn’t give a comprehensive understanding of the wide variety of tools on offer.
I rarely write articles, other than the posts I place here or as a guest on other blogs, so some of the features are of less use to me. Fiction doesn’t require the rigid guidelines that often apply to reports and corporate writing. However, if you write such matter, you’ll find you can set house rules and the analysis will show where these have been broken.
For my fiction, I’ve used a number of methods for editing my text to produce a level of competence that I can present to readers with confidence. I still use that multi-layered system but I now employ ProWritingAid as the penultimate tool. My wife, hawk-eyed, reliable and honest, makes the final check. Since I’ve employed this editing tool, she’s found very little, and that’s been mostly opinion rather than grammatical or syntactical queries.
So, how does the tool work? You paste a copy of your text into the box on screen, press ‘Analyse’ and wait a few moments for the program to scrutinise it. This can take three or four minutes for a piece 5000 words long, depending on the complexity of the language (for this post, it took 17 seconds). Once complete, the result is a series of reports, which detail the findings and suggest changes where necessary. One aspect I enjoy is the praise for being right. Along with the errors, the notes show where the writer has avoided them and gives a brief note of approval.
The following list of reports shows the depth of analysis:Summary – just that; a listing of all errors found.Overused words – frequency of commonly overused words.Sentence variation – gives a visual representation of sentence lengths and highlights long sentences.Grammar – a check on grammatical accuracy.Writing style – checks for passive and hidden verbs.Sticky sentences – finds those sentences that contain any of the 200 most used words: these sentences can slow the reader down.Clichés & redundancies – highlights clichés and expressions that say the same thing twice.Repeated words & phrases – highlights repetition of words and 2, 3 and 4 word phrases within short stretches of writing to give an opportunity to introduce variety.Corporate wording – shows ‘jargon’ usage, which you may or may not wish to avoid.NLP Predicates – I had to look this up – Neurolinguistic Programming relates to how we express ourselves and use language to express feeling, amongst other things. For more info, try this website: http://www.renewal.ca/index.html  Pronouns – highlights repeated use of pronouns to start sentences.Diction – shows possible diction problems and suggests alternatives.Vague & abstract words – shows those words that lack strength or that might lack specificity.Complex words – indicates word length by number of syllables – suggests simplification where appropriate.Alliteration analysis – shows phrases where alliteration may have crept in inadvertently.Pacing – identifies places where the pace is slowed by introspection, backstory, etc.Consistency – points out inconsistencies in spelling, hyphenation and capitalisation.Sentiment – shows where sentiment might vary suddenly from positive to negative, etc.House style – allows the user to develop a house style and ensure it remains consistent through the piece.Time – allows the user to check for consistency in the usage of time references.Dialogue – finds those rogue dialogue tags that you might want to avoid.Homonyms – checks for those words that sound alike and therefore may have slipped through your spell check.
I’ve avoided giving examples in the list above, as it would have made the post too long. I hope most serious writers will be sufficiently aware of the content to understand the context. I’d advise those who aren’t to invest in a couple of good grammar books, as an understanding of language is an essential prerequisite for a professional writer. In the same way that you’d be unlikely to employ a plumber who lacks a knowledge of his trade, you shouldn’t expect a reader to struggle through work that displays no understanding of the tools of the trade: words.
Using this program as my penultimate editing tool has helped me enormously. I can’t honestly say it’s speeded up the process, because it hasn’t! But it’s made it much more thorough and I feel far more confident about sending my words out there into the reading world.
There are a few niggles, which you need to know. If you use a PC with MS Word, you can download an application that will allow you to make changes within Word. But if you use a Mac, like me, you can’t yet do that (they are, apparently, working on a fix.) I haven’t found a way of preserving the formatting of my text. I paste it in the form of a normal fiction template, which has no line spacing between paragraphs and uses indents. But the copied text, when corrected, is returned as line-spaced paragraphs without indents, and the font is changed. This is easily corrected, of course, but it would be helpful if such changes didn’t occur!
Having discovered that I can email the reports to myself as a .pdf document, I now use this and place the MS document on the left of the screen and the .pdf reports on the right and make the changes that way. Works a treat, if a little laboriously. 
There is also a visual aid, producing a word cloud, as in the illustration, that gives a graphic impression of the weight of the words you’ve used. Useful in the way that it really draws attention to word usages you might otherwise overlook.

Do I recommend the software? Absolutely. It’s relatively inexpensive at £22.70 ($35.00) per year and it certainly does all I need. If you decide to try it, here’s the link: http://prowritingaid.com/Related articles Coherent Writing: Diction Seven Tips for Writing Concisely The Dangers of Writing In Passive When an Active Voice Is Demanded. A week of resources and inspiration for the Writer - Day 2

Microsoft Office for Mac 2011, by Dwight Spivey, Reviewed.

Not a general book, of course, but a one for those interested in and learning to use the software with the hardware and operating system.
I thought I knew Word, in particular, very well, but there were many lessons for me here. I’ve learnt things that will hopefully increase my productivity and allow me more freedom to express myself more fully. The ability to work with programs like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint more effectively will certainly improve my speed of work. But, as familiarity increases, I also expect that my confidence in use will allow me to take advantage of many of the aspects of the programs of which I was previously ignorant or uncertain. It solved a problem or me involving Excel and charts; for that alone, it saved me much time that would otherwise have been wasted.
Laid out in a logical manner, which aids both learning and actual use, it’s a ‘Dummies’ guide in all but name. Of course, there are many aspects that are merely alluded to and many others that aren’t covered at all, but that’s to be expected with a subject so complex and multi-layered.
Illustrated copiously with screen shots, the text gives excellent examples of the solutions to many of the problems we deal with daily in our computer lives. The tone is friendly and light, but the content is serious and fairly comprehensive. I’m by no means a techie, but I found it easy to follow. I’m very new to the Mac, and previously used Office 2010, so I had more than one set of changes to deal with. The book led me easily through the maze of technical jargon, helping me understand much that had previously been a mystery to me.
Organised into chapters dealing with various aspects of each program, I found the whole course easy to follow. I ignored the section on Outlook as I’ve tried this program in three of its previous manifestations and always suffered major problems with it. There are other programs available that do everything outlook does, and are easier to deal with, so I’ll stick to those. My knowledge of PowerPoint is very small, but as an author, I can think of ways in which it could be very useful, especially for marketing, so I was glad of the help on that.

If, like me, you’ve recently purchased either a Mac and/or the newer Office software, and you’re having difficulty using either or both, then this is the book for you. Of its type, it’s one of the better examples and I recommend it.Related articles Office 2011 update includes more Office 365 features How do you transfer a powerpoint on microsoft to a mac presentation? Microsoft's Office 2011 For Mac Gets New Update, Office 365 Compatibility Microsoft will give away Office on smaller Windows 8 tablets